Interpreting Interpreter: Early Modern Q&A

This post is a summary of the article “A Plain Exposition of Book of Mormon English by Means of Short Questions and Informed Answers” by Stanford Carmack in Volume 63 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https://youtube.com/shorts/OC78CMrnmh8.

The Takeaway

Carmack answers some key questions on the Early Modern English present in the Book of Mormon, clarifying ways that the text appears not to have come from the mind of Joseph Smith.

The Summary

In this article, Stanford Carmack uses a question and answer format to help clarify common ideas and misconceptions regarding the grammar, syntax, and lexis of the Book of Mormon. Acknowledging the unexpected and counterintuitive nature of the nonbiblical early English, Carmack presents research-informed answers to the following (abridged) questions:

1. Did Joseph Smith speak an ultra-archaic dialect in 1829?

No. His writings suggest he spoke a standard nineteenth-century American dialect, along with some bad grammar. Many of his linguistic tendencies (and those of his large, varied dialect group) are the opposite of the patterns seen in the Book of Mormon. Even if he had somehow spoken 1590’s Elizabethan English, much of the early modern usage in the Book of Mormon fails to align with a Shakespearean dialect.

2. Did Joseph Smith use his own language to express the meaning of the Nephite record?

No. Book of Mormon language doesn’t match his linguistic preferences, it’s not biblical, and its archaism exceeds every known pseudo-archaic example.

3. Is Book of Mormon English usage only statistically different from pseudo-archaic usage?

No. Much of the book’s archaic vocabulary and syntax is completely absent from late modern or pseudo-archaic sources.

4. Does the bad grammar found in the Book of Mormon mean that Joseph worded the text?

No. There are over 100 instances of non-standard grammar that weren’t part of his grammatical system, and even the passages he might have produced often include syntax only found in earlier English.

5. Could the term translate apply to Joseph dictating words that the Lord revealed to him?

Yes, in that he may have conveyed the words he received from the Lord, in alignment with the wording in 2 Nephi 27:24 (i.e., “him that shall read the words”).

6. Does Joseph receiving words from the Lord imply a single translator of the Nephite record?

No. No one knows for sure how it was translated, but it’s possible that the Lord commissioned multiple translators or translated it in some other way.

7. If the book has expressions that Joseph might have made, does this mean that the translation involved his mind and language?

No. The language often labelled as nineteenth-century appears in earlier centuries, and some may have been even more popular in the early modern era. The early nineteenth century has an almost 50x greater rate of representation in available databases than the early modern period, which can bias our perception of the data.

8. Do changes to italicized words meant that Joseph referenced a printed biblical text?

No. The copy-error rate of the printer’s manuscript suggests that copying from a printed text would produce less than 100 of the 712 recorded differences between the Book of Mormon and biblical texts, and changes to italicized words account for a minority of what remains. A number of changes are early modern in character and actively go against Joseph’s linguistic preferences.

9. Does mixed verb inflection indicate a mixture of early and late modern English forms?

No. Mixing {-s} and {-th} verb usage (e.g., taketh and returns appearing in the same sentence) was common in the early modern period.

10. Does extra negation (e.g., “there were no robbers nor no murderers”) provide evidence that Joseph worded the text?

No. This usage was common in both early and late modern periods, even among educated nineteenth-century speakers and in Shakespeare’s plays.

11. Does the bad grammar “the holy scriptures testifies” provide evidence for Joseph’s wording?

No. It’s actually evidence against Joseph’s influence, since that usage only appears in the early modern era, with no instances in the 4.4 billion word late-modern corpus.

12. Is the Book of Mormon entirely early modern in its language?

No. There are two clear examples of word meanings that entered English in the mid-1700s (derangement and transpire), though these should be appropriately weighed against the dozens of examples that were obsolete by Joseph’s time.

13. Is “had partook” in 1 Nephi 8:25 bad grammar?

No. The phrase was used by literate authors starting in the late 1600s and the surrounding phrasing represents early modern usage and is neither biblical nor pseudo-archaic.

14. Is the language in that verse a Frankenstein hybrid of early modern syntax?

No. It could fit cleanly in the late sixteenth century, the late seventeenth century, or as a non-clashing combination of the two.

As Carmack concludes:

“As one reads the [Book of Mormon’s] original language, questions always arise about grammatical usage, but in the vast majority of instances, the nonstandard language in question occurred at some point in the early modern period, while the same can be said of the late modern period. My hope is that the foregoing will clear up some prevalent misunderstandings about this topic and lead to a greater appreciation of the language that Joseph Smith dictated in 1829.”

The Reflection

I personally see Early Modern English as the most powerful evidentiary signpost in the question of Book of Mormon authenticity, and I’ve felt this way for a while now. Critics don’t seem to know what to do with it, but neither do many on the faithful side of the aisle, since it doesn’t fit cleanly into traditional or intuitive views of the Book of Mormon translation process. The optimist in me hopes that articles like this one help us get over the intellectual hump–to a point where we can fully incorporate it into the Book of Mormon zeitgeist. Until then, we can acknowledge the point, statistical or otherwise, that patterns of Early Modern English are truly unexpected from the view of nineteenth century authorship, placing it as far outside the hands of Joseph as feasibly imaginable.

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